How many innocent people have died in Iraq?

[sedders]

I've heard it's around 9000. The only source I know of thats counting it is the web site www.iraqbodycount.com but some people here think thats a anti-war propoganda machine. Someone has said it's only 3200, but that the Associated Press number for the first month of the war only, before the new iraqi government ordered hospitals to stop counting the dead.

So does anyone know any other groups that are trying to count the loss of innocent civilian lives, or any sources other than AP?

 

[davyuk]

An 'anti-war propoganda machine' - Is that supposed to be the evil machine that prevents countries fighting and killing? Bring on the machine...

'only 3200' - ONLY? Well that makes the deaths of only a couple of thousand in the WTC seem insignificant.

 

[Zoot]

Um.

I certainly hope this thread will take into consideration UNICEF's reports on the consequences of 10 years of UN-imposed sanctions, that were supposed to be lifted when the UNSC determined Iraqi compliance, but the US refused to uphold that part of resolution 687.

Or the non-stop bombing between Gulf War I and Gulf War II.

Because the stuff in the last 10 months has been utterly bloodless compared to all that.

 

[LiberalChristian]

"Only 3200" I would laugh if it wasn't such a horrible thing. For those who say it was "only 3200" I ask if the number would seem bigger if one of those "only 3200" was your spouse or child. What is two of those "only 3200" were members of your family. I wonder how many of these were children.

Remember the story of the one sheep that went astray. That even one of the 100 was worth the shepard going out looking for it.

I know that the original post was not meant to minimize the number, it is just that even the death of one non-combatant is too many. Before all the Hawks in the forum start defending the death of non-combatants as a necessary evil, save it. My point is that this is one of the many GREAT horrors of war.

As Christians we all need to work and pray for peace.

 

[Blemonds]

However many it turns out to be, Saddam Hussein is responsible for each and every one.

 

[DoomMoose]

I dont see how you can come to this conclusion.The US has done some pretty unpleasant things to these people.

 

[revolutio]

However many it turns out to be, Saddam Hussein is responsible for each and every one.

That is like saying the Viet-Cong were responsible for every death in the Vietnam War.

The person responsible is whoever pulled the trigger or flipped the switch. No one else.

 

[Zoot]

However many it turns out to be, Saddam Hussein is responsible for each and every one.

That's twisted, man.

The US illegally invades a country to disarm a guy of weapons no one but the American public thinks he has, flying in the face of world opinion and international law, and it's Saddam's fault people died in the ensuing conflict?

It's more of that fascinating Orwellian American doublethinking, where the aggression of America is unthinkable and anyone defending against American aggression is considered the real aggressor. I was shocked to learn that the US demanded (and received) reparations from Vietnam for the US invasion of Vietnam. Clinton - nice, loving fellow that he is - conceded that they could use a portion of their debt for educational purposes at home. Aw, nice.

Is it absolutely beyond the conception of the average American mind that the US government might actually be the baddies, even occasionally? Or is "good guy" defined in the mind of the American as "American", and anyone America decides is the enemy is the "bad guy"?

 

[Ikaria]

http://www.theonion.com/onion3914/saddam_proud.html

 

[revolutio]

http://www.theonion.com/onion3914/saddam_proud.html

Well you've have to have goals in life. Atleast he set a realistic one.

 

[Blemonds]

That's twisted, man.

The US illegally invades a country to disarm a guy of weapons no one but the American public thinks he has, flying in the face of world opinion and international law, and it's Saddam's fault people died in the ensuing conflict?

It's more of that fascinating Orwellian American doublethinking, where the aggression of America is unthinkable and anyone defending against American aggression is considered the real aggressor. I was shocked to learn that the US demanded (and received) reparations from Vietnam for the US invasion of Vietnam. Clinton - nice, loving fellow that he is - conceded that they could use a portion of their debt for educational purposes at home. Aw, nice.

Is it absolutely beyond the conception of the average American mind that the US government might actually be the baddies, even occasionally? Or is "good guy" defined in the mind of the American as "American", and anyone America decides is the enemy is the "bad guy"?

Twisted is calling the invasion illegal.

 

[Blemonds]

That is like saying the Viet-Cong were responsible for every death in the Vietnam War.

The person responsible is whoever pulled the trigger or flipped the switch. No one else.

The Viet Cong were merely one facet of the Viet Nam war. The deaths in Viet Nam were the responsibility of Ho Chi Minh

 

[revolutio]

The Viet Cong were merely one facet of the Viet Nam war. The deaths in Viet Nam were the responsibility of Ho Chi Minh

All of them?

 

[Blemonds]

I dont see how you can come to this conclusion.The US has done some pretty unpleasant things to these people.

Such as?

 

[kermit]

However many it turns out to be, Saddam Hussein is responsible for each and every one.

These innocent people died because of war, which is a horrible thing. The reasons for the war are debatable and not applicable to this thread. The previous statement applies to those both for and against the war. We should mourn and pray for all those lost is this war.

 

[Zlex]

So, let's jump to the factual accomplishments, and then weigh the postponement of the achieving of THAT against the requirement to wait, even forever if necessary, for all that TBD to be documented in detail sufficient to win over every last anarcho-anti-capitalist in a Big Headed Puppet, even if that would have taken forever.

Should even just 150 children remained in prison indefinitely awaiting Hans Blix to get tired of being run around the block?

Should the Kuwaiti prisoners from the 1991 War have rotted another 12 years in their holes while nuanced debates raged quietly on at E. 44th?

Should countless Iraqis have waited their turn in the torture cells awaiting the lawyers in Brussels to finish their sweetened coffees?

Should an entire nation of 27 million have spent another 12 years -- 118 Billion terror filled human nights -- living under Saddams brutish Ba'ath terrorfest, waiting for the knock on the door or their name called out at some assembly of the insane?

It may not be 'nuanced,' but you are darn right that just those ends alone justified these 'means', which consisted of more than, in the face of thuggery, responding with "If you don't stop doing that....we'll tell you to stop doing it again...and again....and again...," an act that, in and of itself, was irresponsibly endangering the future of peace in the world.

 

[Zlex]

"Only 3200" I would laugh if it wasn't such a horrible thing. For those who say it was "only 3200" I ask if the number would seem bigger if one of those "only 3200" was your spouse or child. What is two of those "only 3200" were members of your family. I wonder how many of these were children.

Remember the story of the one sheep that went astray. That even one of the 100 was worth the shepard going out looking for it.

I know that the original post was not meant to minimize the number, it is just that even the death of one non-combatant is too many. Before all the Hawks in the forum start defending the death of non-combatants as a necessary evil, save it. My point is that this is one of the many GREAT horrors of war.

As Christians we all need to work and pray for peace.

Just when the looney Left was getting itself organized to Stop This War , aka keep the brutality going and turn our back on 200,000 murdered Iraqis/yr because we weren't being attacked, the rout is over.

Turns out, ineffectiveness, wrong headedness, and a complete lack of focus still can't accomplish must.

I guess that is the source of all the bitterness apparent in some of these posts. It's got to be a real <explitive deleted>, so soon on the heals of the election.

But, hey, cheer up; don't these things usually just come in threes? That would be good news, because otherwise, maybe they are unending.

I think it's time for the loony Left, not to be confused with the loyal Left, to regroup, rethink their strategy, you know, breath through the soles of the feet, whatever.

Meanwhile, we must acknowledge at least one concrete good to come out of this war; for at least those weeks of war, far fewer Iraqi civilians killed then during 'peacetime' in Iraq, which averages 4000/wk during Saddam's modern era of totalitarian Stalinist scientific statism.

I guess, for a while, the Ba'ath Socialist Party in Iraq was just otherwise occupied, and couldn't stick to their knitting.

 

[Zoot]

Twisted is calling the invasion illegal.

Well, Richard Perle is twisted in general, but he wasn't lying when he said the invasion was illegal. Then there's Keir Starmer, Queen's Counsel, who pointed out to Tony Blair that 1441 does not authorise force. Or the dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs saying that eight out of ten international lawyers consider it illegal. Or how about the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Western States Legal Foundation declaring it illegal? Here's some Canadian law professors! Or a professor from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law?

You've got an awful lot of people disagreeing with your desperate clinging to lies about the war being legal. Even your own government isn't claiming its action was legal!

 

[Zoot]

I guess, for a while, the Ba'ath Socialist Party in Iraq was just otherwise occupied, and couldn't stick to their knitting.

Good one. That's almost as witty as blemond's "law and order? isn't that what HITLER preached?!"

 

[Blemonds]

All of them?

With a few exceptions like the incident at My Lai. But even that has to be partially attributed to Ho